Methods training for community workers

By Staci Kentish

In 2012, ICA Canada began piloting the Community Facilitators Initiative (CFI). CFI supports the development of people prepared to take ICA’s Technology of Participation (ToP®) methods, the best facilitative practices of their peers as well as their existing skills into agencies and local community groups.  ICA Canada provides a framework of learning for these individuals as they form a developing network.  As facilitators, we create a space for these leaders to reflect, share and support each other as they work towards being the best and most engaged leaders they can be.

Background
ICA Canada completed a three-year project in the fall of 2011 called the Young Community Leaders Project. It involved training young people in ToPÒ methods, supporting them in completing community consultations and then working with them as they developed projects that reflected what they had heard from their peers.  We learnt a lot of lessons through that project, not the least of which was that we could have a more far-reaching impact if we built the capacity of those doing the frontline work rather than trying to do all the frontline work ourselves.  In further conversations with potential funding agencies, we discovered that while there were many organizations engaged in frontline initiatives with youth, several did not have the depth of skill to go deeper.  The ToPÒ methods and ICA ways of reflection do have the ability to engage that kind of capacity in people.

A New Path Emerges
The program model was developed out of conversations between Miriam Patterson and me about our experiences in the community development field as employees of a small not-for-profit.  We talked about how each of us in the sector feel like we are operating in silos, how we often don’t have access to the same professional development opportunities as those in the private sector and how it can be difficult to avoid burnout without a wider circle of support.

How the Program Works
We provide a comprehensive three to four month-long capacity-building experience that goes beyond what is accessible to most community workers in Toronto. We do this by:

• Working with small groups of eight to 12 people, training participants in ToP® Group Facilitation methods.
• Coordinating a two-day weekend retreat for participants to connect more closely with their peers and exchange best practices.
• Supporting a six to eight week period of fieldwork that includes six hours of individual mentoring with an ICA staff member to meet each participant’s own learning goals, relating their professional needs to facilitation practice and/or community development.
• Facilitating a reflection meeting at the end of the fieldwork, plus ongoing networking events with other CFI groups.

Imaginal Education based Workshops
During the weekend retreat, we ask that CFI participants create and facilitate a 30-minute workshop for the group that either pushes them to try a facilitation technique or process they’ve never used before or that stretches them into unfamiliar subject matter.  We talk through the Imaginal Education lesson-planning template which encourages a facilitator to think through the type of experience they would like to create for their participants as well as how best each individual might learn.  CFI participants are then encouraged  to use this template as they think through creating an experience for their colleagues.  These experiential workshops then become the focus of deeper conversations about facilitation and group work as we provide feedback and think through how that subject matter impacts us and our work.

Image Shift
Our experience of leading these group retreats, and then following them up with deep individual coaching sessions has highlighted the wisdom of Kenneth Boulding’s Image Change work.  What we thought would be coaching people through the application of ToPÒ methods has actually been much deeper, more complex work that can’t be divorced from conversation and reflection about how one’s self-image plays as much a role as the process one chooses to move a group through.  It has become clear to us as we work with these facilitators that our style and effectiveness is impacted by and reflects how we see ourselves in the world.  Working with these deeper images has the possibility to change our practice as facilitators.

What CFI is Telling Us About ToP® Methods
CFI participants are all people either currently working or volunteering in community or who aspire to work in community in some way.  We see the feedback they give us about how they’re using ToPÒ methods and how the methods are received as invaluable.  It’s creating an opportunity for us to see the methods in action, to spread the benefits of their use and to see where they fit in today’s context and how they complement other theories and methods being applied.

The realization of the Community Facilitators Initiative has been deeply satisfying for both Miriam and I both in the ways we’d hoped and in many ways that were unexpected.  We are finding our own facilitation practice strengthened as we learn and engage with our colleagues, and we are emboldened by the fearlessness many of these people have when it comes to pursuing their hopes and dreams.  Our intention is to work on a sustainability model that will enable us to continue CFI as a primary offering of ICA Canada next year and to capture impact stories from past participants to share our experiences more broadly.

This article was written in collaboration with Miriam Patterson

Staci Kentish is a member of ICA Canada and a board member of ICA International.